Sign Up For The Source

Mark Engstrom is a Certified Blending Designer, Middle & Upper School Head at Allen Academy—and an ISM workshop leader. This February, he was invited to lead his fellow consultants in a day-long professional learning opportunity surrounding one of the latest educational trends emerging from the Information Age: blended learning. This curriculum focuses on the integration of personal learning through technology with more traditional face-to-face interactions between teachers and students.

The Source had a chance to speak with him after his presentation and dig deeper into what he sees the impact of technology-fueled education will be on private schools now, as well as what it could be in the future.

As telecommuting becomes more acceptable in many professional industries, several public schools that want its graduates to be prepared for the workforce have begun to experiment with “work from home” days for its students, as reported by Benjamin Herold for Education Week.

Don’t mistake this phenomenon for an online school or homeschooling program. These are brick-and-mortar schools offering unique interactive activities for students to complete in home offices or at dining room tables, creating a purposeful blended learning environment that administrators hope may replicate “real world” working conditions after graduation.

When blended learning, gamification, makerspaces, and other technology-heavy buzzwords make their way through educational journals and forums, it can be hard to see whether these tools and techniques are something to invest in. Are many of the digital learning trends just fun ideas for those bored with tried-and-true techniques, or do they truly mark a fundamental shift in how students need to learn?

Here, we break down four studies that offer a deeper context to show how technology-assisted tools have previously helped—or hindered!—learning in other schools.

Bios (short for “biography”) are one of those odd professional documents that people never think they’ll be called on to write … until they are. Whether it’s for a blurb in an Open House bulletin or a longer “About Me” page on the school website, professional and engaging bios appear more often than you think—and are often your prospective audience’s first impression of you and your work.

That said, bios can be extremely difficult to write. You know yourself and your accomplishments better than anyone, making you the best person to write the bio, but “tooting your own horn” can feel intrinsically uncomfortable. Fear not! There are tricks for pushing through your initial unease. So let’s take a look at how to write the three most common bios you’ll be called on to provide.

Q: Families often ask me what they can “expect” as an award when they turn in their financial aid applications. They tell me how much they make in a year, thinking that their salaries will be enough information for me to offer a rough award estimate on the spot. Do you have any advice on how to respond?

December 2015’s Source for Development Directors featured Bethany Academy’s remarkable viral fundraiser, in which the school’s top fundraising parent made a “miraculous” half-court shot and won half off her daughter’s tuition for the 2016-17 school year. We had a chance to talk with Bethany Academy’s Development Director Rochelle Platter, and discuss what went on behind the scenes to create such a successful fundraiser for the school through a community building event.